US Journalist: Obama will not launch a war against Iran

By Kourosh Zaibari

This interview of TCBH! founder and collective member Dave Lindorff was published in the Tehran Times on Jan. 9, 2013
 
 
Q: In one of your recent articles, you criticized Washington for imposing unilateral sanctions on Iran that deprive millions of Iranian patients of medicines. How does the U.S. government really justify these sanctions? What’s the general attitude of the American public toward the sanctions?
 
A: The U.S. does not justify this kind of thing. It simply doesn’t acknowledge it. The admission by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright that U.S. sanctions caused the untimely deaths of some 500,000 children in Iraq was an exception, caused by her being asked the question by a reporter on a live program. As for the American people, they mostly don’t know what is happening in their name, and for many who learn of this, while perhaps it upsets them a little, it is seen as “necessary” because Iran is portrayed rather absurdly as a “dangerous” enemy of the U.S. 

Q: In your article Democracies Don’t Start Wars, But Fake Democracies Sure Do, you have pointed at the numerous military expeditions of the United States in the recent decade. The U.S. government sees itself capable and righteous in launching these attacks, but what about the American people? Do they share the same feeling with the government or are really opposed to their government’s militarism? 
 
A: Again, I’m sorry to say that most Americans, if they think about America’s outsized expenditure on war and the military, just assume it is necessary. The propaganda that has been warning about the dangers of Islamic terrorism has been so pervasive that many people are actually scared that they will someday be victims of a terror attack. It’s crazy. When the 9/11 attacks happened, most school districts in the country cancelled all class trips to museums, parks, etc., for fear that terrorists would be attacking school buses! For a whole year, our school district in my town had no school trips! I think Americans would like to see spending on the military cut, and polls show a majority would like the wars ended and troops pulled back to the U.S. from abroad, but it’s not high on their list of concerns. In part they are lied to about the size of the military budget, which they think is much smaller...

For the rest of this interview of DAVE LINDORFF, founder and member of the collective that puts out ThisCantBeHappening!, the new independent Project Censored Award-winning online alternative newspaper, please go to: www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/1519